A petition to remove Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali from the SPLC “hatemonger list”

As I noted yesterday, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has screwed up big time by including the names of Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali on its “field guide to anti-Muslim activists”, saying that these reformers “fuel the hatred of Muslims.” That’s simply not true, and is an outrageous accusation. If reform is to come to extremist Islam, it will be from people like these, who have no fear of criticizing not Muslims, but the oppressive parts of their faith.

Change.org has a petition directed to the SPLC to remove the names of Hirsi Ali and Nawaz from their list. Of course they won’t, but I think it’s important that the SPLC know that many of us support the reformist activities of Hirsi Ali, Nawaz, and the Nawaz’s Qulliam Foundation. If you found the SPLC’s inclusion of these two as odious as I and many readers did, please go over and sign that petition. As of this writing, only 1952 people have signed out of the first goal of 2500.

I’m sorry but I’m not going to sign this petition. The idea that an SPLC took upon itself the right to libel and smear people is abhorrent as it is. To defend just two people listed there because their opinions are similar to my own would be the same as endorsing their right to issue such lists. There are other people on that list; I do not have to agree with everything they say to think that placing them on such a list is a scandal. The existence of this “hit list” should be condemned.

Malgorzata put it perfectly. It is odious to plead only that the victims you like should be exempt, but that this kind of smear is fine otherwise.
It is odd to defend McCarthyite behavior with an admission McCarthyite behavior is bad.
“My team right or wrong” doesn’t convince me.

Every person or group has the constitutional right to express opinions about public figures or groups. This takes place probably thousands of times a day by opinion writers. Other names for such actions are freedom of speech and freedom of the press. If you don’t like the opinions of somebody else counter them with your own speech. There is nothing inherently wrong or immoral with what the SPLC did. I share with most readers of this site the view that certain names on the list should not have been there. This site and many others, along with the petition, are the means to advise the public of the errors of this list. So, in contrast to you, I do indeed endorse their right to issue such a list (emphasis on right). I also endorse the right of those opposed to some of the names to vigorously criticize it.

Yes, I know about this right. My name is on a similar list, only this one was compiled by Polish neo-Nazis. In the today’s world to label people who are only dealing with words, without calling for violence, “anti-Muslim extremists” means that they may become a target for Islamist extremists – and this targeting would not be done with words but with bullets. That’s why what SPLC done was preparing a hit list.

I understand your point, Malgorzata, but people will make these lists. There is not much one can do about it. But if a colleague is smeared, I will speak out. For example, if the SPLC put PCC(E) on its list I would protest.

Also, it is because the SPLC is mostly a respectable organization. I would view appearing on a Neo-Nazi list as a badge of honor.

People do many things and when we do not approve we criticize their action or condemn them. A kind of social pressure. Like many people and faculty at diverse American universities condemn the “black lists” compiled by Canary Missiom (for those who never heard of them: they comile and publicize in the similar manner to SPLC’s list, named and deeds of anti-Semites and anti-Zionists at the American universities). I may be wrong but I strongly suspect that the same people who defend SPLC’s right to compile lists are condemning Canary Mission.

And no nagging suspicion that the others may not belong on the list of “anti-Muslim extremist” either? That they are just smeared like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Maajid Nawaz are smeared by this self-appointed court of justice? I know that my example is over the top, but it captures the same attitude. During the WWII some Poles couldn’t understand what Nazis were doing. They were not bothered by what Nazis were doing to Jews and Romas. They didn’t know them that well and heard some unpleasant things about both. But why persecute Poles? They were OK. No, the persecution of Poles had to be condemned.

To me it is rather a message to SPLC: “Before placing anybody on your list check carefully whether the person you want on the list have support among your supporters. Those people your supporters do not support you can smear with impunity.”

I won’t sign it either, because Change.org and because I’m no friend of convenient “just a few clicks solutions”, as online petitions are.

Why should the target of an petition care about people whose outrage exploded in some clicks on a website?

If you really want to make some impact, put adequate effort in it and write a protest in your own words (i.e. don’t copy it from the net). Phone your target if you can, urge your local representative if appropriate etc. etc.

Maajid Nawaz has a radio show, and there are a few short video clips here that will give you some kind of idea of what his general style and substance of argument is. Particularly try the one titled “Islamic Takeover Of Britain”, and then try to square that with the fact that the SPLC has slapped an “anti-Muslim extremist” label on him.

Let us suppose that — very crudely — we can describe two types of Muslim.

An “Islamist” is someone who takes a hardline interpretation of Islam, and wants to impose that hardline on society as a whole. Sharia law would be imposed. Blasphemy laws would be imposed. Veils would be compulsory for women in public, etc.

A second group: the “moderates” takes a much more liberal interpretation of Islam. Such a person wants a pluralistic, secular society in which Islam is a *choice* for those that want it, but not *imposed*. A woman could wear a veil if they wished, but would not have to. Someone could avoid drawing Mohammed if they wished, but would not have to.

Nawaz is very much in this second group, and advocates for a moderate Islam and opposes the Islamists.

The SPLC seem to be saying, but the people in the first group are Muslims. And Nawaz is against them. Therefore he is an anti-Muslim extremist.

It’s as though the SPLC were to say that Hilary Clinton must be an anti-American extremist because she is against Trump, and Trump supporters are American.

Nawaz is more than a moderate. He is also advocates for women’s and LGBT rights within Islam. He opposes blasphemy laws, advocates for freedom of speech (such as for ‘Charlie Hebdo’) and human rights, and works with extremists to get them to recognize that violence is, at least, counter-productive.

He has been vilified by the authoritarian part of the left for even talking to people like Sam Harris, but he keeps doing it anyway because of his belief that such conversations are what create progressive change and functioning, pluralistic, democratic societies.

You know, Mr. Coleman, you could look up that information yourself instead of telling the readers to supply it for you (which some have kindly done). Really, are you incapable of doing any of your own research? That’s how most of us came to know about Hirsi Ali and Nawaz.

I read Nawaz’s rebuttal in the Daily Beast and I agree with almost all of it. One exception, however, is when he says “Nothing good ever comes from compiling lists.” Lists can be useful. They can serve the purpose of providing the readers with information about a topic that they are not familiar with. It is the job of the discerning reader to views such lists with a degree of skepticism. This approach is no different than how one should evaluate a book or an article. The reader should be asking several questions. Does the author have an apparent bias? Are the arguments and evidence supporting the position convincing? The reader should be prepared to look for other opinions on the topic.

Lists can be particularly useful during political campaigns. Political parties and non-partisan organizations issue lists of candidates they support and don’t support. I find such lists beneficial in determining whom I would vote for when the candidates are unknown, such as is the case with judges. So, my recommendation is look at lists as guides, but think for yourself!

Signed it. I am a long-time SPLC member and supporter and have admired the SPLC for the civil rights and anti-discrimination work they have done over the years. But I am deeply disappointed in the SPLC for having included Ayaan Hiri and Maajid Nawaz on this list.

I believe Muslims are harmed indirectly by words critical to Islam because bigots feel empowered by them. They see in this criticism a moral authority to promote violence against Muslim Americans and their property. They will use anything available to confirm their bias. The bigots are wrong, of course, but do their actions mean the rest of us must cease our assault on Islamic theocracies which oppress and cause countless grievous human rights violations? We cannot let our own problems—the racists, the haters, the bigots, the misguided—from pressuring these theocracies to change.

It is a terrible shame that so many—all over the political spectrum—manage to conflate the criticism and pressure we must necessarily put upon oppressive Islamic theocracies with any and all Muslim people.

You are bending over backward too far. It’s specific ideas of Islam that are the problem. Theocracy is one of those ideas, but the problems extend to many others. Islam itself is a problem. Maajid Nawaz aims at reforming Islam by modifying many of those bad ideas. I hope he is successful, but I’m not sanguine about possible success.

In countries like the U.S. we have to say to Muslims, “Where your culture or religion go against our laws, our laws win, and your contrary ideas deserve no respect due to the mere fact they are held in your religion.”

I think the theocracies are what provide a moral template for the oppressive, authoritarian versions of Islam. Without the law of the land giving large numbers of Muslim people the moral authority to say this is the right way then it will largely be tamed, much like Christianity was.

There are no theocracies in America or Europe. There aren’t that many in the entire world, yet at any rate. So “the law of the land giving moral authority” is not the main problem. It is much more dispersed – radical imams and true believers spreading the poison.

You have it exactly backward. It is particular versions of Islam that provide the template for theocracies.

I will not sign. To me, this is only one more incident in SPLC’s long slide from an organization I once supported to an illiberal farce.

SPLC and the associated co-sponsor groups certainly have a right to make such a list, that’s not the problem. I don’t want to legitimize their judgement or criteria for deciding who should or shouldn’t be on it by singling out just two of the named.

If Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali were removed from the list would this enterprise be any more acceptable? It seems like a thinly disguised strategy to shame and squelch criticism of Islam in the name of anti-bigotry.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, Carl. Lists give me pause, too, since they can morph into “blacklists” (like the Hollywood 10, if any historical antecedent is needed).

But I’m generally interested where the boundary might be. I wouldn’t have a problem with an article about the rise of anti-Muslim bigotry that called out, say, ten people or events that were indicative of such a rise. Would you?

How about a list during the civil-rights era that would have called out the 15 worst practitioners of Jim Crow?

Yes, except who is doing the judging as to who is a bigot and which fear is irrational or not, and which word or thought is ‘hatred’.
There is no shortage of virtue signaling moralizers willing to throw the terms bigot and hate-speech (as well as a number of other favorites) at the drop of a hat.
Often people who are incapable of comprehending context or nuance.
.

Seems to me, you need to argue either that such lists are wrong per se, or be willing to set out some meaningful objective standards for when they’re wrong and when they’re permissible.

The problem with an ad hoc, case-by-case, I-know-it-when-I-see-it approach is that it will ultimately come down merely to whether we thinks the people on the list are bad, which means having one standard for those whose message we find disagreeable and another for those whose message we don’t.

I would just add this. It really is not my job specifically to tell anyone they can or cannot have a list of whatever they want. Have at it. But when the list is created and it calls it a list such as this one is called and they put these specific two people on it, whoever made the list should be called out for this. If it is dead wrong for these people to be on it, we say so. So it is fine to argue lists in general should not be made or whatever comes to mind. Everyone has lists right…even Santa.

Ken Kukec writes:
Seems to me, you need to argue either that such lists are wrong per se, or be willing to set out some meaningful objective standards for when they’re wrong and when they’re permissible.
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I just don’t see this is the case. I could easily make defensible lists of say serial killers or high ranking Nazis in 1944. But I feel no obligation to supply the general principles for making lists of malefactors. As I stated above, I don’t think it can be done. Why do you think that obligation falls on me?

I had understood your position to be that you were declining to sign the petition to have Nawaz and Hirsi Ali removed from the SPLC list because you felt there was a problem with the the list itself beyond their mere inclusion on it — either that such lists are wrong per se because they’re used as a stigmatizing tool, or because of some inherent issue with this particular list beyond its inclusion of people who don’t belong. (If that’s not accurate, if I’ve conflated your position with that of some other commenters in this thread, I apologize.)

I’ve signed the petition to have Nawz and Hirsi Ali removed, and it did not occur to me in doing so that there might be some problem beyond that inherent to the list. Given the historical issues our nation has faced with blacklists, however, I’m open to persuasion on the issue. I was simply seeking to probe the reasons for your position to that end.

If Maajid Nawaz and Ayaan Hirsi Ali were removed from the list would this enterprise be any more acceptable? It seems like a thinly disguised strategy to shame and squelch criticism of Islam in the name of anti-bigotry.
–

Read the petition closely. Observe what the writers have done. The same tactics used against AHA and MN are used against all the others on the list. It’s the same tactic used so often by the failed-liberal enemies of Sam Harris and Douglas Murray.

And what is the purpose of the petition? It’s not really a warning about evil individuals addressed to the a good, true-hearted public. The purpose is to frighten and intimidate anyone who dares to criticize Islam.

Correction. If it’s not clear from the context, my use of “petition” in the above is a coffee deprivation induced error. I meant the “SPLC field guide to anti-Muslim bigots” not the petition against it.

Signed, posted to FaceBook, with comment: This labelling is censorship. I have been following Nawaz for some time. SPLC is free to disagree with Nawaz about the situation in the UK (although perhaps he is better placed to judge than they), but to label his views (of all people’s!) “extremism” is to stop discussion where it is most needed. I know less about Hirsi but expect that similar considerations apply

I appreciate reading the arguments against signing, and I agree with the underlying principle. The inclusion of thes two on the list highlights the problem with the list, which I had noticed before, and which is why I signed the petition.

Doing something to help solve part of a problem is not ignoring the big problem. In contrast, it’s the first step to solving it. I hope the petition gets enough signatures to be noticed by the media.

SPLC has been a great organisation but it is no longer doing social good – insofar as it takes on the role of suppresser of political thought from people who are not violent. It has become a highly biased political player that needs rivals for the civil justice space or needs a scare to wake it up and get it to concentrate on real racism or the creation of a liberal successor focussed on real racism.

I signed the petition although Malgoratza comments that SPLC has compiled a hit list on which Maajid and Aayan are just two entries. Some other people on the list ike Daniel Pipes, whilst very anti Islam and fairly anti Muslim, do careful research and contribute to public debate, though one may not agree with a lot of his views. However Ali and Maajid are particularly egregious inclusions on the list, being brown and Muslim themselves (at least by background in the case of Ali) and being considerably more endangered by inclusion on the list. A petition about them is more likely to be actually paid attention to by the SPLC as well as waking up some genuine liberals in the community at large. If the SPLC has been transforming into a SJW organisation over time, this is a public shorthand as to how unreasonable the SPLC has now wound up. Of course the real hit is if enough liberal people can be persuaded to stop funding SPLC, and call for an investigation of their finances. Unfortunately it seems to be part of the post modern climate of polarisation and fact denial/ naiveté/ willingness to believe conspiracy theories and reject assessment of likelihood as an offshoot of the nasty capitalist or debauched liberal Enlightenment.

Life matters on ABC has just featured as “Women Who could rule the world” the keynote speaker, Jill Hicks whilst an ambassador for peace and herself maimed in the attack insists the 7/7 bombings that killed 52 people in London had nothing to do with Islam. ABC at its harmony angle again. Recently its Late Night Live program was doing an admiring review of the life of Sayyid Qubt one of the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood and its intellectual godfather. Meanwhile on Counterpoint the show that is supposed to represent the right they interviewed a philosopher who’s a big fan of Trump’s foreign policy. Sigh

eg extract
“Well, Potok said, the head of Scotland Yard’s Muslim Contact Unit had accused Nawaz of ‘demonising a whole range of groups that have made valuable contributions to counter-terrorism,’ and that was good enough for him.

I tried to explain that the then head of the Muslim Contact Unit was Bob Lambert, one of the most notorious agent provocateurs British policing has produced. He stole the identity of a dead boy and infiltrated left groups. Pretending to be one of them, he got an activist pregnant then vanished from his partner and child’s lives. He had a shadowy part in the ‘McLibel’ case, which led to two environmental activists being persecuted for years in the courts, and is under investigation for allegedly smearing the campaign for justice for the murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence. There are reasonable grounds for suspecting that, when Lambert attacked Nawaz, he was trying to ingratiate himself with Islamists as he had tried to ingratiate himself with leftists.”

I signed and commented: “Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Maajid Nawaz have more experience, clearer thinking, better communication skills, more honor and far, far more courage than I or anyone else I personally know will ever have, and they use it to try to save Muslims from Muslim extremists! SPLC, you’ve got to be kidding me, targeting them! You, of all people/foundations, should know better.”

Valerie Tarico posted her own essay on this insane listing of Ayaan and Maajid, too. Hers is another WordPress site. The more posters with followers get the word out, the faster that petition should fill to overflowing.